IT stringendo tempo modification common Support my free tools
- Abbreviation
- string.
How is stringendo played?
Drive the tempo forward progressively so the pulse and phrasing feel increasingly compressed and urgent rather than merely faster. Stringendo differs from neutral accelerando through this pressing character; affrettando suggests hurry, while incalzando suggests pursuing momentum, though the boundaries remain contextual. A crescendo is often written alongside stringendo at climactic build-ups, but it is not contained automatically in the word: increase volume only when dynamics or musical context support it. Continue to the target, arrival, a tempo, Tempo I or another tempo instruction. The standard abbreviation is string.
How does stringendo sound?
An urgent, gathering surge — the music seems to clench and lean forward, building pressure as it accelerates.
In context
Trinity College London, Brockhaus, Nationalencyklopedin and OnMusic independently document string. and define stringendo as pressing forward or becoming faster. The direction is common in Romantic and operatic intensification, especially where motion gathers toward a climax, but speed and dynamic remain separate parameters unless the score combines them explicitly. German drängend is a useful Mahler-era comparison for expressive pressure, not a mechanically identical instruction in every passage.
Music theory and score context
See also
- Glossary of musical terminology — stringendo (Wikipedia)
- stringendo (Musicca Italian dictionary)
- Tempo — stringendo, 'pressing on faster' (Wikipedia)
- Trinity College London — Musical terms and directions for performance
- Brockhaus — stringendo
- Nationalencyklopedin — stringendo
- OnMusic Dictionary — stringendo
- Orchestra Library — Glossary of German Terms: Mahler 2